Bicycles in the news

Bicycles in the news from Los Angeles, Bangalore, East Sussex, Rawalpindi, Edinburgh, Cardiff, London and Gary, Indiana. Click through for the stories.

British Conservative Party MP Boris Johnson, who is known for his outlandish persona and love of cycling for transportation, is running for Mayor of London and pushes cycling in his platform. He has been the victim of several bike thefts and has expressed his desire to plant “decoy bicycles throughout Islington and send Navy Seals in through the windows of thieves.”

It’s crazy, but we cyclists think that we’re a transportation solution, as local activist Stephen Box is fond of saying. We think more riders on major boulevards during rush hour will solve LA’s congestion problems – and in a green way. Why? Because while cyclists might appear to impede traffic when you’re stuck behind one huffing and puffing uphill, they actually free up traffic. For every instance where a cyclist slows you down, there are 100 times they pass through congested traffic unnoticed. That means one less car in that traffic jam. When you get to your destination and go to park, that cyclist translates into one more available parking space.

The resolution to use the cycle to go places within a 10-km radius of my home amid honk-happy motorists on Bangalore roads made me learn a lot of things – like patience and perseverance. If one has lost anything, it is weight – 10 kg in seven months. “Nothing can help me unwind as much as cycling after a hard day’s work” was my belief.

He simply had a minor epiphany a couple years ago about our society’s addiction to gasoline, and nine months ago his lifestyle began a rebirth. At that time he consciously began weaning himself from his daily dependence on gas.

“I believe the end of our drive-everywhere car-obsessed culture is nearing its end,” he told me.

“I just don’t see how anyone would think that carrying on the way we have been — essentially a farce of limitless consumption in a finite world — is wise,” he said.